Various engineering colleges in Bangalore witnessed a dip in the number of campus placements from the service sector in the first quarter of 2016-17 placement season. One of the placement officials revealed that earlier service sector used to hire 100-200 eligible candidates from the campus. This year, there is a 20-30 percent fall in the number of offers made by these companies to freshers.

Prof D Ranganath, Placement Director of RV College of Engineering indicated that service sector used to recruit a high number of candidates earlier. However, the recruitments by service sector have declined this year. Eminent companies like Wipro, Infosys and others changed their recruitment pattern which could be one of the reasons for the dip in placement offers. However, it has not affected the overall placement scenario.

P. Bhanurekha Reddy, Placement Officer of Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology (NMIT) mentioned that most of the companies from service sector are looking for specific talents. Most of the companies are switching to automation sector and need fewer people. On the other hand, the companies are also looking for the candidates who are good in critical and logical thinking as well as technically sound in their approach. So far, 300 students out of 600 from NMIT received offer letters. The highest package offered was Rs. 9 lakh per annum by Microsoft.

One of the students expressed that the entrance test is quite challenging, but it is a changing trend for the better. The standards have gone up, and the test has become more competitive. The first half of placement season is going to end in the month of December.

One of the placement officials was of the opinion that a few good companies have stopped coming for placements. Some of the companies from service sector claim that Brexit and other uncertainties are impacting their economy and they do not want to take the risk. Hence, these factors are slowing down the number of recruitments.

The major highlight of the placement season is a total number of 512 students out of 700 from Bangalore Institute of Technology (BIT) got placed in various companies like Infosys, Wipro and Accenture.